


in his eyes i see you

by astroidbelt (greglastrade)



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-29
Updated: 2015-11-29
Packaged: 2018-05-03 03:43:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5275199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greglastrade/pseuds/astroidbelt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He had always wanted a son, but when he was blessed with one, he couldn't even bring himself to be a father to him. Instead, he treated the boy like he was a ghost. He was absent; he worked too often. What time he did spend with his son he spent gazing through him; he dare not love him for fear of feeling the wrong things. After all, this is how he had gotten into this situation in the first place, wasn't it? He had fallen in love with a man. He had loved disgracefully, and in return he had been given a son in his lover's image, a son whom he could not properly love.</p><p>        An eye for an eye. The punishment so perfectly fit the crime.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in his eyes i see you

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a prompt from hamiltonprompts.tumblr.com: "When he looks at him, Alexander swears his son is the reincarnation of Laurens. Which gets suuuuper awkward sometimes when he’s missing his secret boyfriend. Crack, Lams." Except it isn't crack, and it's super sad! Hah. Nice.
> 
> Warnings for: Philip's death, internalized homophobia, and for the fact that this is ALL show-based. Not a drop of real historical fact in sight here.

        Philip was a boy of peculiar habits. There were the superficial things: he wore his pants too low, and he tied his shoes a very particular way, and he wore his hair long and loose, hating more than anything to have it cut. Then there were the more genuine things: the way his eyes flickered with a boyish determination, something somewhere between foolish and grand. The way his mouth curled downwards ever so slightly when he was focused. The tilt of his head, when he smiled, and the jut of his chin. The swagger in his step.

        As long as his father could remember, Philip had had unusual bouts of curiosity and quietness, a way he picked at the world in a way unlike anything Alexander had ever seen. It was funny, his father thought. Philip was a funny boy. Never in his life had Alexander ever met such a person, so loud and soft at once, so great and at the same time so small. He was still a child, but in a way there was something older to him, something different, something new like the dawning of a nation. Anyone watching him play could sense something unique about him --- he was, as a less creative man may have said, _wise beyond his years_. But Alexander and Eliza chose not to put words to it. They had been blessed with a child as bold and free as America itself, a token of war and martyrdom and renewal and peace and love, and this was enough for Alexander.

        One day, as they watched Philip racing about the streets, when he was eight or thereabouts, Eliza and Alexander saw the child stop short in his running to pick a worm off the sidewalk and place it lightly on a leaf on the side of the road. How very like him to do that, to stop being fast and wild for just long enough to do something kind. Eliza laughed, covering her mouth with a gloved hand. "I've never seen anything like it, Alexander, have you? He's so... well, he's so _concerned."_

        Alexander laughed, too, a soft laugh, an unfocused laugh, still not taking his eyes off of his son as the boy began to dart about once more. This happened often to him, this sensation of being very suddenly pushed into his own thoughts, of becoming silent and still and momentarily absent. A word rang in his head like a church bell, a _name,_ and then he paused for a moment, holding his breath as if debating whether or not to speak. But after a moment, the words flowed forth without an ounce of inhibition, even where, perhaps, there should have been. "It seems," he declared, breaking the silence more emphatically than a gentler man might have, "like something Laurens would have done."

 _Laurens._ It was a name he didn't mention often, a name he hadn't mentioned in perhaps a few years, now. And yet the mere sound of it seemed to shift the evening's entire tone, to shift the very atmosphere around them. It hadn't been a solemn statement, even --- he had spoken as cheerfully and as casually as Eliza had, and yet --- _and yet ---_

        "I suppose I wouldn't know." The woman spoke softly and rigidly, as if she was trying not to be terse, and Alexander could feel the cool autumnal air grew colder and tighter around the both of them. Philip didn't feel it --- of course he didn't, because Philip didn't know. Never had he heard the name before, and this was on purpose, for what did a child of eight know of war and martyrdom and renewal and peace and love --- at least, love of the sort his father had once felt for this Laurens. Instead, Philip ran wildly, unknowingly and uncaringly, with a freedom Laurens had only ever ached to feel.

        Of course, in moments, it was forgotten, and the air returned to normal, and Eliza's smile returned to her face as she walked Philip back inside, and Laurens once again faded from her thoughts. But this was not so for Hamilton: his dear Laurens was never fully gone from his mind, and in this moment, less so than ever. His smile didn't return; neither did he go back to the forgiving warmth of his home. He instead stood out in the cool October morning and shuddered to think of how like Laurens Philip was. His stance, his habits, his smile. Even his eyes, which were neither pale like Alexander's nor dark like Eliza's, were Laurens's, Alexander realized. He had looked into the man's eyes so many times he was shocked he'd never made the connection before. His son was eight years old; as such, Laurens had been dead, now, almost as long. How had he managed not to notice such glaring similarities, in their mannerisms and their voices and their smiles? Eight years, he had had, to see Laurens in his son's face. And yet he never had. Perhaps he had known it was better not to.

***

        Philip sang as warmly and quietly as a cuckoo bird, tentative for reasons Alexander couldn't quite comprehend. He praised each poem his son wrote with shouts of adoration and pride, but alone at night, the songs haunted him, playing in the back of his mind over and over until the words were gone and he was left only with a timbre he couldn't quite identify. Philip's, was it? Or was it Laurens's? Isn't that how he had sung, so many years ago, softly into his ear as they lay together. And when Philip sang choruses and hymnals at the top of his lungs, Alexander could only hear Laurens's great shouts for revolution, high and clear and strong over the roar of a crowd or the roar of a battle. And in time, Alexander found he could not help but hear a lover's croon in his son's voice, and it tore him apart.

        The sight of his sons eyes stunned him, broke him; he found himself often forcing himself to look elsewhere --- behind his head, at his nose (again, not unlike Laurens's), at his own hands. When he was younger, it had been easier, but now Philip was beginning to grow, and there was nowhere Alexander could look that did not remind him of his old lover. Philip was nine, ten, eleven, twelve --- he grew seemingly by the hour, often having to be refitted for clothing monthly. His features grow sharper, his hair wilder, his eyes wiser.

        When Alexander wasn't careful, his mind wandered to dastardly places. He wondered if this was what his Laurens looked like as a boy, so lithe and so pale. So beautiful; almost untouchably so. He pictured him strutting about his father's farm the same way Philip strutted about New York, with an air of superiority to him so confident that it was almost respectable. A rich little thing, by virtue of his parents --- so unlike poor Hamilton had been, broken and orphaned on that unforgiving isle. They had begun so very different, but their hearts were very much the same --- if they weren't, how would they have both come to New York, come to be such radial revolutionaries? If only they had known each other all those years ago, Alexander thought in the dead of night, when he was not with Eliza in bed. If only John had somehow been in St. Croix, perhaps they might have had a few more years together, a few shining, boyish years ---

        But every time, Alexander shook the thought from his conscience with a grimace, because this was _not_ his Laurens, this was not his lover and how _dare_ he think such a thing? This was his  _son._ He had always wanted a son, but when he was blessed with one, he couldn't even bring himself to be a father to him. Instead, he treated the boy like he was a ghost. He was absent; he worked too often. What time he did spend with his son he spent gazing through him; he dare not love him for fear of feeling the wrong things. After all, this is how he had gotten into this situation in the first place, wasn't it? He had fallen in love with a man. He had sinned, he had been indecent. He had pressed his lips to Laurens's soft flesh, he had sighed the man's name softly into those many silent nights. He had touched Laurens more lovingly and more warmly than he touched his own wife, and perhaps this is why God had cursed him with a child he could not properly father. He had loved disgracefully, and in return he had been given a son in his lover's image, a son whom he could not properly love.

        An eye for an eye. The punishment so perfectly fit the crime.

***

        Perhaps it was in his nature to be unfaithful. He had never once considered that this is why he had lain with Laurens for all those years; they had been together because they had loved each other, because their bond surpassed friendship, surpassed the love they felt for their wives. Because they had felt they had to. But he felt no love for this woman, this  _girl._ She was nothing to him but a seductress, a whorewho time and time again was able to manipulate her way into his bed. What did this make Laurens then? Was Laurens, too, just another one of Alexander's great many _sluts?_ That's what the press said, anyway. The papers said that he was a lecherous old whoremonger, with dozens of women and men alike on the side. Every day another scathing article was written, disgusting and cruel and merciless, bringing old rumors back into the public eye, things that he had thought were long since behind him. Everywhere he went he heard whispers in the streets. _Oh, you know that Alexander Hamilton. They say he's George Washington's bastard son, or didn't you know? I hear all his money comes from his whoring himself out. Some people say he sleeps his way through Congress in the interest of politics. Some say he sleeps his way through Congress for certain_ other _reasons._

        When he finally worked up the nerve to talk to his son about the affair, he found it was harder than he ever could have imagined. It felt like he was looking into Laurens's eyes, confessing his sins one last time. What was there to say? What could he say, what could he possibly say to make up for what he did? His hands rested in his lap, and his eyes remained focused somewhere just beyond Philip's eyes --- Laurens's eyes ---  _Philip's eyes._

        Alexander could tell the boy knew what the conversation is going to be about before he even opened his mouth. Perhaps it was the stillness in the room that gave it away, or the way Philip was avoiding his father's eye just as much as Alexander was avoiding his. But, no. What made it truly obvious was the pitying expression on Philips face, Alexander thinks. The sad smile, the distant and soft eyes. Don't pity me, Alexander wanted to shout at the boy. How could you even begin to pity me? My God, you don't even  _know_ me --- _!_

And it was true. Philip hardly knew him at all. And that was just another thing he ought to be apologizing for.

        "I didn't know what I was doing," he said with a quiet sort of laugh, the sort that may have turned into a sob if he hadn't managed to catch the sound in his throat first. He wanted to tell Philip that he didn't want, didn't _need_ forgiveness. He wanted to tell his son that this was just another in a series of idiotic wrongs that he could not undo, no matter how he tried. But for once in his life, his words failed him, and instead excuses came flowing out, excuses upon excuses upon excuses. "I wasn't thinking. I know it's no excuse, I know I can't make excuses, but --- but that's really all there is to it. It was stupid. I'm an idiot, Philip, I'm --- I'm sorry."

        "It doesn't matter." It was as sincere a thing as anyone had ever said. Philip rested one hand on one of his father's, which promptly curled into an unforgiving fist, and even at that, his sad, kind smile did not leave his face. "People make mistakes, father. There are..." He considered his words for a moment before going on. "Well, I think there are worse things a person could do, don't you?"

        Alexander took so long to respond that he thought perhaps Philip would get up and leave before he could force the words out of his mouth. But Philip didn't leave. After years of being ignored, of being betrayed and intimidated and looked at sideways by his own father, he waited a little longer; he let Alexander shut him out one more time, even as it would have been so easy to walk away himself. And he waited long enough, with his hand there, in his father's, to at last coax a smile from the man. "Yes, Philip," he replied, finally. "I suppose so."

***

_John finishes his drink with an absurd gusto. It's almost comical, Alex thinks, and perhaps John intended it to be that way. He always has loved to put on a show, hasn't he? Anyhow, Alex laughs. It is only his second pint; surely he intends on ordering more, and yet it is nearing midnight, and Alex does not like the prospect of walking the other man home when he is simultaneously too tired and too drunk to move on his own._

_To his surprise, the man does not order another beer; instead, he wobbles tipsily over to where Alex sits and places a hand on his knee. "Alex," he says, with a wide-eyed smile. "You look somehow different tonight. Have you done something with your hair?"_

_"I cut most of it off John. Two days ago, in fact. Astute observation." A beat, and then, "Eliza prefers it this way."_

_"Eliza! What does she know about how you should wear your hair. I much preferred it the other way."_

_"What does it matter what you prefer, John?" Alex laughs. "She is my wife, or have you already forgotten? The wedding was only a few weeks ago. You were in attendance --- best man, in fact. Remember?"_

_"Of course I remember --- " And then a sullen scowl appears across John's face, and he stalks back to his own end of the bar._

_But of course, there is no use asking what is wrong. Alexander knows. He is mad that Alex now considers him of lesser importance than his wife; he is mad because Alex is now acting as if he loves him less for it. But how can he not? It isn't as if their meetings can continue now that he is wed --- what was perhaps only lewd before is now sinful, indecent, and scandalous at the absolute best. He will miss his lover, certainly, but there are politics to marriage, politics that are more important than love and desire. And Eliza is a good woman, a woman whom he loves, even if not in quite the same way he loves his Laurens. He follows the man, his feet heavy even without alcohol in his blood, and wraps his arms around his shoulders in the most coy hug he can manage._

_"I'm sorry, John."_

_John says nothing for many seconds. And then he turns his head over his left shoulder and presses his lips very gently to Alexander's. Alex sinks into the kiss for just a moment, instinctually, only. But then he pulls away, a look of fear and regret and longing all at once appearing on his face. "Laurens," he says, and the formalness of it seems to pierce the other man in the heart. "We can't."_

_"We can't," he repeats, quietly. "Of course. You're right. How foolish of me."_

_John kisses Alexander again, his hands fitting carefully behind Alexander's neck, his heartbeat synchronizing just so with Alexander's._

_This time, when Alexander sinks, he drowns._

_They wake up the next morning intertwined, as hot and breathy as they had been in the very first weeks of their affair. Alexander realizes what is going on first --- it has happened enough times, he thinks bitterly, that it is hardly a mystery these days._

_He doesn't know what to do, so he stands and tries to clothe himself. He thinks perhaps he will try to leave before Laurens wakes: it would be easier that way, easier for them both. Laurens is kind, and gentle, and very much in love with the other, and yet Alexander insists on breaking his heart again and again and again. But Laurens wakes too soon, his eyes clouded and squinted against the daylight. Alex fears he will cry; more than that, he fears he will do nothing at all. Laurens has, on occasion, simply detached himself from a situation, simply shut himself down so that he would not have to face the pain Alexander was inflicting on him. But to Alex's surprise --- and perhaps chagrin --- the man instead smiles, and Alexander is helpless._

_"We didn't know what we were doing," he blurts out without thinking, pausing in working his breeches on. He wishes he had begun with something else, something less breathy, something less desperate, something less weak and shaky and wanting. But, Laurens has destroyed him, again, as he has so many times before, and his words, however messy they may be, are the only defense he knows. So fuck being strong. Desperation has followed him since he was a child, since his father left him, since his mother died, since God swept his home away without a thought for the poor orphan boy with nothing else to his name. Why pretend he isn't desperate, when desperation is the only thing he's always had? " I wasn't thinking. I know it's no excuse, I know I can't make excuses, but --- but that's really all there is to it. It was stupid. I'm an idiot, Laurens, I'm --- I'm sorry."_

_Laurens sits up naked in bed, and a soft laugh escapes his lip. "Alexander. Come here." Hesitantly, the shorter man sits on the edge of the bed, watching the corner of the room rather than watching Laurens. He rests one hand on his lover's, which curls for a moment into a fist, but relaxes after a moment or two. "People make mistakes. You and I know that well, Alexander. But I love you, do I not? And there is something, I think, in that impenetrable heart of yours, that belongs to me, too, isn't there? There are worse things than lying one last time with a person you love. Aren't there?"_

_Hamilton doesn't give an answer. He never will._

***

        When Hamilton was very tired, or very drunk, or very stressed, or some combination thereof, Laurens came to him. But it was not Laurens --- or perhaps it was --- often he could no longer differentiate, when sufficiently inebriated, between his son and his Laurens. But it must have been Laurens, it must have been Laurens's spirit, for the way it haunted him like a scorned lover, holding him close and calling him terribly beautiful things. It had been over twenty years since he had last seen the man, but still he remembered the things they would whisper to each other in the night, soft, lovely things that would have them both gunned down in an instant, should anyone have ever overheard. He could still feel Laurens's arms around him; he could still feel his breath on his cheek. But when he would look up at where Laurens's face should have been, flushed and pale and beautiful, nothing would be there. Then, he would look forward again, and there would be Laurens's corpse, mangled and bloody and decaying. This wasn't, Alexander knew, how Laurens had died. He had died in dignity, of a gunshot wound and nothing more. And yet he couldn't shake the image from his head.

         _We should have died together. At the very least, he should have died in my arms. I shouldn't have had to find out by letter. I may not live to see our glory, they had said, and yet how he wished he could take the words back --- !_

        Often, then, he would wake up screaming. Other times, when he was already awake, he would simply sob until the wretched hallucination faded away or until he fell asleep.

        The morning after such occasions, Alexander could do nothing but avoid Philip, who was now nearly twenty and looked just as Laurens had when Alexander had known him. It was like seeing a ghost. It disgusted him to think that the sight of his own son could make him feel so ill, so weak, so broken. And yet if he even caught a glimpse of him, all he would see was Laurens, bloody and cold. Or, worse, he would see Philip himself in such a state. On the most dreadful occasions, it would be them both, flashing before his eyes, wounded and dying and calling to him. He could never tell whose voice it was; he couldn't even tell what the voice was saying. All he could tell was that whatever it was saying was directed at him.

        What he would never admit was that from time to time, when he was in his weaker states, Alexander wondered if perhaps his son truly was Laurens reincarnate. It was remarkably unchristian to think it, but it seemed the only explanation. How else could they be so very similar, in face and mannerisms and spirit? Some nights, often upon waking up from those terrible nightmares of Laurens's decaying corpse, he would sit awake for many hours, considering it. Why send Laurens back to him in such a way? He couldn't conceive it. Punishment, then, was it, or protection? When he was at his very lowest, he absolutely swore they were the same man, Laurens and Philip. There was no other answer.

        Even as he forgot Laurens's face, his memories of him grew stronger, grew fonder. Often he would dream about him and truly think, for a few blissful hours, that he was alive again. Other times, the dreams were just flashbacks to their time together. He would be in bed with Laurens, and they would be together as simply as anything, so plainly that Hamilton was unable to place a specific day to the memory. Sometimes they were on the battlefield; other times, they would be writing together in Washington's tent. He had years of memories to sift through, days and weeks and months of joy, even amidst the hardest months of the war. What memories did he have, then, of Philip? Shockingly few; mostly he worked, and when he did not work, he was afraid to spend too much time with his son --- for fear of what, he didn't quite know. He came to the solemn conclusion, one particularly hot summer night, that if God had sent Philip to Alexander so that he would have more time with his closest friend, he had entirely missed the point. 

***

        When word got to Alexander that his son was dying, the first thought that ran through his head was  _no, no, no, not again ---_ but he found he wasn't exactly sure what that meant. In that moment, Hamilton was a father first, and a father with a dying son is a strange and dangerous thing. For the first time in a long while, Laurens does not even cross his mind.

        Still, the resemblance was there; he felt his stomach drop just the same way it had when the letter from Laurens's father had arrived. Just the same, the world felt slow and heavy around him; his throat was tight; he wasn't crying but he didn't know why not. 

        He asked to see his son, and the doctors seemed to think that  _we're doing everything we can_ was an appropriate answer.

                             _I didn't ask if he was going to live. I know he isn't going to live. I asked if I could see him._

_Can I see him, please?_

        The first thing Alexander did when he got to his son's bed was take his hand and meet his eye, and for the first time in many years they seemed light, more like Alexander's own then anything; they were remarkably young, remarkably calm, remarkably kind. "I did exactly as you said," Philip said after a moment's pause, with a voice that was remarkably _his,_ stifled by blood and death and yet still clear like poetry. _I did exactly as you said._ He was making excuses, as if he were a schoolboy trying to get out of trouble, as if Alexander was going to fault him for getting himself shot. He almost laughed at it. How very like him to be more concerned with pride then his own wellbeing. It was a curse, wasn't it? Having something to prove? It was the seed at the root of martyrdom, at the root of Hamilton's legacy, and now it was at the root of Philip's death, just as it had been at the root of Laurens's.

        Alexander didn't laugh. How could he? He forced a smile, for he could not bear for his son's last sight of him to be anything but, and squeezed his hand. "I know." His voice was soft, languid. It was somehow reassuring, even as a thick sobriety hung over the room, nameless and cold and silent and still undoubtably there, like the presence of death itself. "You did everything just right."

        There is a sensation, when something terrible is about to happen, where the world feels like it is slowing down nearly to a stop. Alexander had seen enough terrible things in his life to know this, to expect it, even, and yet this time, it was different. Nothing changed in the air; the world did not slow down; time did not stop. Perhaps he was too used to tragedy to feel the shift. Maybe that was it. Or maybe it had something to do with his resignation, something to do with the fact that he had already come to accept that his son was going to die. 

        Soon enough Eliza was by his side, frenzied, in a state of panic Hamilton wished he could match. But this was the solemn truth: ever since he had first looked into his son's eyes and seen John Laurens staring back, he had know Philip would die young. Thus was the irony that now, in Philip's final moments, Alexander could not see a trace of Laurens in him, no matter how hard he looked. Alexander Hamilton's best friend had died of a gunshot wound in South Carolina, trying to fight a battle that had already been won, just a few months after Alexander had his first son, a young, bold child by the name of Philip. And almost twenty years later, Philip died trying to fight a battle that could never have been won over the honor of a man who didn't deserve it. Which was better? Is there, even, a better way to die, to leave your loved ones, to pray God has mercy on your soul?

        Alexander couldn't find an answer; he wasn't sure one existed.  _At least,_  he resolved instead, _my son will die in my arms._

        In Philip's final moments, Alexander Hamilton felt no desperation. Instead, he felt tired, solaced, nearly meditative. The sun rises, the world spins, and men's sons die. This is the way of the world. 

        Depression and loss just felt like being tired to him, now. They felt like long nights, and laying in bed, unable to get up in the morning. They felt like praying to a God he couldn't comprehend. They felt like quiet streets, like snowfall. Like terrors that couldn't quite hurt him because he was too used to them. When John Laurnes had died, loss had felt like running, like movement, like making sure you were always one step ahead of the pain. This time, it felt like slowing down, like holding on, like feeling. That was the difference between them, Alexander supposed. And when Philip replaced Laurens in Hamilton's nightmares, Hamilton found himself somehow relieved.


End file.
